


Matthew 20:16

by icarus_chained



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Betrayal, Character Death, Duelling, Gen, Swords & Fencing, The Game, Tragedy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Highlander and the Old Man fight. In truth, this time. No second chances.</p>
<p>Dark little thing</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matthew 20:16

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt, in which the prompter specified that Methos win. Um. I'm not sure if they meant _to the death_ , but ... *shrugs sheepishly*

“Don’t,” Methos said, one hand raised, palm out in warning as he backed away, the other grasped lightly about the hilt of his sword. “Duncan, please. Don’t do this.”

“And let this continue?” Duncan snapped back, pained himself. Fierce, and wearied, and so pained. “Let this slaughter go on, Methos? Just so my … my supposed _friend_ …” He stopped, swallowed on a snarl, and raised the katana. Betrayal, pain, so fresh in his features. 

Methos winced, bit back the apology, the bright and winnowing words. No. Not here. Not now. Only the truth, now.

“It was always coming, Mac,” he said, softly. As gently as he knew how. “The numbers rise and fall. When they peak, a gathering comes. It’s always been the way. The point … the point is to _survive_ , Duncan. To ride it out, until the quiet comes again. You’ve just got to …”

“Ignore it?” Duncan asked, bitterly. Quietly. “All of this. All these deaths. You can ignore that, Methos?” A bitter sneer. “You can _aid_ it?”

Methos shook his head, blanked his expression. “I do what I must,” he said, shrugging lightly. Not one scrap of apology. Not one scrap of shame. He had none. He never did.

“Yes,” Duncan said. Soft as poison. “Yes, you do. And Methos?” He lifted the katana, almost gently. “So do I.”

Methos swallowed pain. Swallowed desperation, the beating of his heart in terror. Opened his mouth for one last try, still backing away, hand still upraised. “Don’t do this, Mac. I want to live. I want to live, and you’re willing to die to stop this, and you _have_ to know how that will go.” He shook his head, face creased in desperate plea. “Duncan Macleod of the Clan Macleod. I _beg_ you. _Do not challenge me_.”

It fell in vain. He knew, even as the words fell, that it was in vain. Duncan Macleod, the warrior defending his clan, all that remained of his clan, his sword bright and terrible in his hand, would bow before no enemy, listen to no pleas for peace. Not once battle was joined.

For all the pain it caused him, for all the wrenching of his heart, Duncan was not going to cede.

And Methos … wanted to live. Always, forever. The very base of all things, the base of more than five thousand years of self. He wanted, _needed_ , to live.

His heart was stone, as blades met. Black and heavy in his chest, motionless, unmoved. A passionless avatar, death unmade, and there was no hope against him. Not in this. Never in this. All the swords in the world meant not a thing, when the choice was between life and death, and Methos the chooser.

Duncan was good. The best, perhaps. Methos could match nothing of his skill, nothing of his raw mastery. The katana moved like a living thing, bright and pure as the soul behind it, an extension of the hand.

But that was the point. Always, ever. The sword was the extension of the hand, the hand of the will, the will of the heart, and when Duncan struck he struck, even still, at his friend. He struck with heavy heart, and pained eyes, and all the anguish of a broken heart. He struck, not to cause pain, but to end it. Not to harm, but to finish.

Methos, built of single purpose, struck to win.

He caught the katana on the downward sweep. Not with the sword, but with his hand, by the hilt, stepping full into range. Caught the arm, deflected the blow. Not away, but _in_. Into him, onto him, in the place of his choosing. The cutting blade swept through his shoulder, clove for his chest, the pain appalling, the pain immaterial. Duncan, with a hoarse shout of shock, of visceral horror, tried to pull the blow, tried to twist the blade aside. Caught in Methos’ ribs, an otherwise killing blow, the katana failed to move.

Methos did not. Holding his enemy’s weapon caged in his body, fearless, immortal, deathless, he caught his own sword from his clenched, bloodily hanging right arm, gave it to his left, and raised it. Quick and clean. Merciless, as Duncan stumbled, still caught in horror, and fell to his knees before him.

There was no moment, as the sword rose and fell. No second of connection, no mute plea between them, no moment of understanding. Pretty lies, every one of them. There was nothing, only the fall of the blade, the momentary resistance that signified nothing but the ending of a life, and the dull, hollow thud of a head, falling from a neck. Of hands, falling from a prisoned sword hilt.

There was nothing, as Duncan fell.

Methos fell. Dropped to his knees, losing the broadsword’s hilt to scrabble, uselessly, at the katana’s. To clench white knuckles about that pale hilt, his chest cloven in two, his heart, even still, even yet, unbroken. Unmoved. Black stone, set amongst the bleeding.

“So the first shall be the last,” he whispered, humour bubbling, black and broken, as the lightnings crawled. “The last shall be the first, and the first last, for many be called, but few chosen.” He laughed, cracked and bleeding, into the rising storm of that Quickening. “Oh, _Mac_. You great Scottish idiot. You poor, _stupid_ bastard.”

He sat, Death unmoving, with the blood and the lightning, and the silent wetness of his cheeks might have been tears.

Or might, at the end of it, have been only rain.


End file.
